The same old story...

Spread over what feels like a million years.

I was at 'Hart House' on the U of T campus today.  HH is the main 'student center' at U of T but to call it 'student center' is to strip it of its romance and charm.  It's a classic old-school building from a  'Cathedrals-are-still-a-design-icon' age.  It's the place where I spent most of my so-called University education.  Mostly I'd hit the upstairs library and sleep.

I'm still so amazed that I actually graduated that I have recurring nightmares of getting a notice in the mail that I've been found out as a fraud and my degree has been revoked.

Not that it helps me much anyway.

B.A in English/History anyone?

So today the wife and kids had a trip to the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum) to see the new Dinosaur exhibit and I drove them 'cause we're in deep freeze here and I didn't want Niki stressing out on her way there.  Taking four kids to a MUSEUM is stress enough, right?

After dropping 'em off I drove a block and a half south to Hart House, parked (the minivan, which is so uncool...) and went inside.

Nothing's changed.

I still had my U of T backpack from first year on my back, the girls were still hot, the guys still mostly nerdy, the couches still red vinyl, the downstairs cafe still serving brilliant food.

I felt like I was home.

And the weight of the years just hit me.  I started going there in 1992!  That's, what, sixteen years ago?  How on earth is that possible?  I can't believe it's been that long. The only thing that looks any older on me is my hands (getting that wrinkly dried out look).

Then I was talking to one of the new anchors at CTV in Vancouver today, getting a reference on a dude we're looking to hire for one of our shows, and the guy tells me he's known and worked with our prospect for thirty years!  That's almost as long as I've been alive!  And I'm going to be this guy's boss?

That's crazy.

So I'm feeling very caught between age and youth today.

To add insult to injury, I overheard a report on 680 News (our local all news radio station) outlining a study that has discovered that, for the typical North American, 'mid-life crisis' starts at 44 and can continue into the early fifties.  They said 44 is the bottom of a 'U' with twenty at the top left, 44 in the center bottom, and 70 taking up the top right spot.  Happy at 20, deeply depressed at 44, then as happy as a 20 year-old again at 70.  Told Niki about it and she said; "Maybe that's why we've been so 'dark' these past two years?"

See, we're 33 and 31 going on 43 and 41.  We've been in our career for more than ten years, have four kids, have owned three houses, have a net worth, two cars, land, some growing career 'respect' and the growing list of career 'enemies' to match.  Our backyard has a 'red wine bottle graveyard' that looks like a mid-forties couple lives here.

We're in mid-life crisis.

And it all started back when I turned 29.

I was three years into planting a Church that I hadn't planned to plant alone, my brother and I were in our first ever potentially life-altering dispute, and my TV career was going nowhere.  I was trapped.

So in the four years from then 'till now I've resigned that Church (which I still miss deeply, like a wound rubbed raw...), ruined then patched (to some small degree) my relationship with my brother, axed my TV career to launch a film one, continued to struggle to launch the film one, had my name dragged through the mud trying to 'faithfully' (and I'm already on-record here as a self-admitted 'mix up covered in a fix up' so back off...) pursue some other Church planting options, mostly (trying for honesty here) because I was so freaked out at having no prospects, no future, no pulpit, no money and an ever-increasing number of mouths to feed that I felt that unless and until I 'heard' otherwise I should at least keep trying to pursue the opportunities that were being presented, and then (to my utter shock and surprise) had my TV career resurrected from the dust.

A very surprising four years.

And I still deeply, painfully, miss the life I used to have.  

I miss the carefree days of 'student-dom'.  I miss the pulpit.  I miss being just me and Niki.  I miss Gord and Jess and David.  I miss the fresh-faced approach I used to have and the things I used to believe.

But then again, I embrace the 'missing' for what it is.

Accrued experience.

I am, after all, in mid-life crisis.

And am, after all, the recipient of some pretty neat 'dreams come true'.  The logo above is for my new company.  A film and TV production company I've wanted to launch all my life.  And it's actually doing work.  Potentially 329 episodes of television this year, plus the release of our first feature film, plus possibly (ALWAYS POSSIBLY) the production of our next.

To say nothing of the fact that my wife's beautiful, smart, motivated, and organized and my children are glorious.

So my mission today, good reader, it to remind myself and you that there is 'goodness' in the midst of 'suffering'.  There is 'gain' in the midst of 'loss'. There is 'vindication' in the midst of 'vilification'.  

And, always, there is work to be done.  So much work.

But I got to say that seeing good ol' U of T today, mostly unchanged and truckin' along, reminded me to calm the 'eff' down, embrace the pain and promise of my daily life, and trust.

'Cause some things change, but some things never do.

T

The big pitch...

Nothing happens 'till someone sells somethin'...

It's true.

Especially if you're in business as a 'Church Planter' or 'Filmmaker'.  

(To clarify: for my purposes, a CP'er is someone who starts a Church from scratch--the hyper-entrepreneurial kind of Pastor/Preacher-- and a FM'er is a writer/producer/director/editor or some combination of the four...)

See, nobody believes you and nobody wants to help you and nobody cares if you succeed or not. 

Life's a bitch 'aint she? 

My Dad puts it somewhat more delicately, "Never let anyone else champion your cause."  They don't care, don't want you to succeed, and don't give a whup' whether you can feed your kids or not.

So you have to sell them.

A phone call with a major record label in the U.S yesterday got me thinking this way.  I'd been in touch with one of the honchos at the label a month ago (a relationship that's been simmering for almost half a decade...) and took the opportunity to pitch him a few of the concepts we've currently got in production.  I was hoping to get him to 'bite' on helping me find a way to align his label's interests with mine.

Aligning of interests--remember that one.

So out of four pitches, he bit on two.  One I'm following up on.  The other got thrown to another person in a different dep't.  The honcho said he'd let her know to expect my call and I could take it from there.

Mission accomplished part 1.  He'd 'bought' my pitch enabling me to move onto step two.

It then takes me two, no THREE, weeks to get her on the phone.

So we talk yesterday and I do my dance all over again.  Norman Jewison famously refers to what we Producers do as 'dancing', whirling and twirling and smiling and hoping to make our audience want what we've got...

"So this kid gets sucked back in time to the eve of the very first Christmas..."

And it takes me nearly forty minutes (and if they give you more than four minutes on the phone you know you've got them at least partially interested) but at the end of it she 'buys' what I'm selling, enabling me to move to step three.

This is why my wife doesn't do what I do.  

She can't stand the steps.  It'll probably take me twenty to thirty steps to close this deal, stretching over three to six months.  And in that same period of time I'll probably pursue another five to six equally complex, involving, pitches pouring my whole heart into trying to 'sell' them to one party or another and each of those will fall flat at some point.  But this one might stick and I won't know for sure unless I complete the steps and I won't get to another step unless she 'buys' this one.

So the call yesterday ended in a 'victory' which means I get to do more work.  A full-out proposal that she's going to shop around her department and if (from a distance) I (through my proposal) get them to 'buy' what I'm selling I'll get to go to step six (four=creating the proposal, five=her dep't 'buying' it) which will be to travel to her head office (two hour flight, ten hour drive in my new sports car, hmmmm....) to do my dance in a flashy boardroom for her boss and peers.

I'll wear my suit and shave and flirt up a storm for that one.

D'you see how hard it is?

And the thing is so many Pastors see themselves as 'mystics' and treat 'selling' as beneath them and so many Filmmakers see themselves as 'artists' and treat 'selling' as selling out...

Which is why you get so many broke, bitter, unsuccessful folk in those lines of work.  And hey, I'm not sayin' I've got the lock on any kind of virtue here.  

Mostly I'm just terrified.

Terrified I won't rise to my potential, won't feed my babies next month, won't feel that fierce sense of fulfillment that comes from achieving something you've dreamed of, won't enjoy that deep peace that comes from being 'obedient' to your calling.

I'm damn scared.

Which is why I sell.

And y'know how I learned?

By failing.

I've got so many rejected proposals and show ideas in my files it should make me want to throw myself off the nearest bookcase.  But I learned something about ten years ago.  I realized that if I ever started keeping track of all the dead ends I'd lose my joy.  I'd lose my ability to believe. I'd stop trying.

And you know what's happened?  

Those hundreds (thousands maybe) of hours of what could very fairly be called 'wasted effort' have turned me into a selling machine.  I just do it.  Intuitively, almost effortlessly.

(and, truth be told, that's why many people dislike me to greater or lesses degree--because I'm always 'selling', always dreaming out loud, always talking about what might be and that makes me say too much by times and that pisses people off and I understand and I'm sorry...)

'Cause I still believe in the dream.

And if you don't believe you can't sell and if you can't sell you won't work 'cause...

Well, nothin' happens 'till someone sells somethin'.

(and that shot off the top is one page of 37 prep pages for a script that I wrote a year and a half ago that I still haven't been able to set up but in which I still believe...)

Deeply.

T

The uncommon magic...

I've been away a while.

Suffering mostly.  

"Suffering through what?"

Through learning how to edit.

I mean, I know how to edit.  I've supervised more hours in an edit suite than I care to remember.  And to all the editors reading this who are thinking, "You don't know how to edit..." may I submit that I was supervising edits back in the day when analog suites where considered cutting edge. 

Analog.

Like, I walk in with twenty pages of timecode notes (a 'paper edit'- yes, we used to do those) and once the system copies from tape to tape we start to put it together in realtime.  Like an 'online' except without the leeway.  And before you go and start speculating on how old I am ("Analog?  This guy must be a dinosaur...") may I also submit that I started my career at age 19.  And the whole "19 year old supervising a 38 year old editor..." thing is another story altogether...

But my Executive Producer and I have decided it's time for me to (as I like to put it) learn how to 'ride the machine' myself.  It's just time.  So I spent all of last week commuting three hours a day to sit in a class with a bunch of computer geeks (SUPER geeks...) doing my best to not have my brain explode while wave after wave of nonlinear digital editing software info rolled over me.

It was truly a humbling, mostly awful, experience.

Now that I've finished I have to get my own system up,  (you don't even want to ask how much it costs...) read the textbook, and start cutting stuff.  It's a very strange to feel like a complete idiot again.

I kept getting ideas during 'hell week' for posts but never had the time to sit my butt down and type.  The upside is that many of the 'so-called' and otherwise flaky ideas that occurred to me percolated some and were discarded as less than worthy of my/our time, leaving me with something for today that is, I hope, actually worthwhile.

The uncommon magic.

So we watched 'Stardust' the other night and really liked it.  It took us away to another world.  Was wonderfully paced, beautifully written, acted, art directed, and directed.  A really nice film.  The thing that struck me about it after was that it was so nice a trip that I didn't spend much time nitpicking the story or plot holes.  It took me away.

Because of the magic.

There was a moment in the film where Niki exclaimed, "So that's what you were trying to do with the Oracle in your movie.  That's exactly what you would have done if you'd had the money!"  Yes my love, I would have.  And that was a nice moment friends.  To have my wife, who is both ardent fan and strident critic, recognize that I did something 'great' (emphasize 'small' "g"...) with something little.  That was cool.

So if my film and 'Stardust' shared nothing in terms of budget, quality of production, etc. what was it that caused her to trumpet their similarity?  

The magic.  A whole lot of it in 'Stardust' that reminded her of the wee little bit in mine.

That's the thing really.  Magic.  Or call it 'transportational ability' if you want.  That 'thing' that allows a storyteller to take his/her audience away.

'Cloverfield' did it to me last night.  Totally took me away.  Not for one second did I feel like I wasn't 'there', like what was happening on-screen wasn't really happening.

It had the magic.

Which leads me back to Church for a second, if I may.  Was at a Church service recently and, though the kids had a great time (for which I'm well and truly grateful and humbled) the service left me with nothing.  I might as well have not gone.  Seriously.  Nothing.  I took nothing with me.  Nothing about the worship, nothing about the preaching, nothing about the production design did anything to leave a mark on me.  It didn't take me away.  At all.

The people were really (REALLY) nice, for which I'm grateful and give them their props. Their professionalism was impeccable for which I admire (and slightly envy) them.  They did everything right.

Except.

They didn't take me anywhere.

I was reminded again recently that it's 'effects heavy' films as do the most business.  And why's that?  Because those kind of films take people away.  O.K, sometimes.  There are many effects films that fail to transport because they lack story.  Those films fail miserably and bankrupt their funders because gobs of $'s have been spent on the flash with no substance. There are, of course, those films that transport on story more than on razzle-dazzle.  The ones with truly great story cross over and become hits.  

If, however, you combine transportational story with transportational effects you get a mega-hit, a blockbuster.  Check out the top grossing films of 2007 and tell me I'm wrong.

(it's not like I can be wrong on this, I didn't make any of it up...)

So, how does this hit home to us, the producers or pastors?

Well, crap.

We have to transport.  

That's the thing.  Everything you do with your piece needs to transport.  And where that gets difficult is in the small details of the work you do.  Take one of the TV shows I'm producing this year.

"The Daily: with mark and laura-lynn" is a daily half-hour series that will be airing in Vancouver (and potentially across the country) starting this spring.  The one-liner I've been using to describe the show is "Breakfast Televsion, at night."  So how, exactly, do you make that exciting?  How does a show like that rise above 'normal' to attain 'transport'?

(and here's the price of admission for the day [if I do say so myself]...)

By finding the uncommon magic in the everyday.

What is it that is extraordinary, special, marvelous, about what happened today?  What would make a 'hook' to a song, a story, a sermon?  What thing did you observe in the world around you that is worthy of your audience's time?  What 'spin' can you put on it to help it rise to a level of inspiration so that your audience is arrested by the beauty, humor, or painful truth of what you've decided to share with them?

Finding and applying the uncommon magic is the thing that separates a 'blah' TV spot from a great one, a smokin' movie from an 'o.k' one, a brilliant sermon from a waste of time, a 'singalong' from a session of touching Heaven.

Man, oh man, we've got to find that magic.

If I don't, my show will fail.  If they don't, their pulpits will be weak.  I you don't, your efforts will be wasted.  And here's where the non-producers/preachers get something from this.

The magic is everywhere.

I truly, honestly, believe that...

You can cook it into the breakfast you make for your kids.  You can mix it into the love you make to you wife.  You can wield it in your relationships, at work, in your heart as you struggle to find the strength to do the right thing in the face of doubt.

Where's the magic?  Where's the magic?  Where's the magic.

The uncommon magic.

How can I grasp it?  How can I apply it?  

BOOM!

You find that sweet spot and, all of a sudden, your work rises to art.

"Eeez-alla-mumbo-sheem-een-dumbo!"

(watch 'Alladin' again, kids)

T

Objectivity...

"The pride of your heart has deceived you..." (Obadiah 3)

So how do we ever know what we're up to?

(oh by the way, that's my new car up there...)

It's a serious problem for the spiritually seeking as well as for the creatively working. I can't count the number of times I've seen the same question from new writers; "How do I know if my work is any good?"  The answer from the grizzled vets is typically some version of "You just know." And if they're feeling grumpy that day they add that if you don't know the difference between good work and bad, you're a poseur.

So how about that kind of 'knowing' in my spiritual life?

Could cause you some stress, no?  Not knowing (for sure) if your spirituality is truly vital or not.  That kind of insecurity leads to all manner of disfunction in the organized Church (and it's not 'cause the organized Church is 'bad' it's just that any organized thing is typically more full of people than a non-organized thing and where there are people [in whatever context--corporate boards anyone?] there is dark and dysfunction) and on your average movie set.

Why is the starlet freaking about her close up and driving the makeup artist crazy?'Cause the starlet thinks (deep down in the honest inside) she's ugly.  Why have I often flared in defense of my work at the first sign of criticism? Deep inside I believe I'm a hack.  I've heard the same confession from folks at the top of the show biz heap.  They keep waiting to get 'found out'.  Keep waiting for someone to kick them out 'cause they suck.

I wonder if people in Church feel that way.

(what if they found out about my...[insert your weakness here]?)

With my movie (www.thestormiscoming.com) I've had the hardest time in the past year (as we slowly inch towards release) being objective about it.  I'm so close to it, I can't really tell if it's any good.  I remember reading a quote from Spielberg talking about 'E.T' where he said the film had given him a great gift twenty years later by allowing him to see it with fresh eyes, like he'd had nothing to do with it. M. Night says (in his biography) he sees all his movies that way once he starts screening them for audiences.

Deep inside I don't believe him.

So you read a quote like the one off the top of this post and it either drives you to work, legalism, and insecurity or it drives you to relax into grace (a gift you don't deserve...).  Look, I am bad.  I am lazy.  I am also good and hard working.  I've never met anybody who's all one thing.  That's why they say we're "mixed up".

Call me a bag 'o tricks.

And the whole of me, good, bad, ugly, good-looking is the thing that has been redeemed.  I'm covered.  Notice 'covered'?  Doesn't mean the practical bits of me have radically changed over night but all of it has been covered (like with a blanket) so that when I'm looked at by someone who sees life through 'redemption-oriented' glasses I'm seen as a mix-up covered in a fix-up.

(I like that: 'mix-up covered in a fix-up' you could rap that...)

You embrace that and you get to work.

Nothing's every going to be perfect.  I'm o.k though, as I am.  Have been made so. So I work at what I've been made to work at, doing my best somedays and a percentage of my best others.  All through it I keep moving forward (one foot in front of the other...) knowing that all I have is my sense of things.

Maybe someone conservative is thinking about 'objective truth' here.  I believe in it. But I know I see it through my view.  Am I a relativist?  I am.  Is 'Truth' relative?  I don't think so.  'Truth(s)' can be.  "Truth" (like gravity, justice, entropy, life) can't be.  The tree's gonna' grow whether you believe it or not.  A starving child shouldn't be, no matter how enlightened or dark you are.

So your work is never going to be objectively 'good' or 'bad'.  It's just work.

Your spirituality is never going to be objectively 'good' or 'bad' 'cause it's inextricably caught up in your subjective life and that's why it had to be covered. You can't (under any circumstances) make it 'right'.  

So why bother?

'Cause you love it.

Don't you love it?  Don't you love touching Heaven?  Don't you love the majesty of it?  Don't you love the magic of writing, of collaborating, of rendering images on-screen crafting a facsimile of life?  

Isn't it glorious?

That's why I love my car.  (And I know some people find my ongoing love-affair with the things abhorrent...I rest in knowing that their subjective view is stupid [!]) 

It's beautiful and I don't deserve it.

My heart may be deceitful but it's covered.

So, back to work.

T